Marte Gerhardsen works to change Norway’s self-imposed military restrictions near border with Russia introduced by her grandfather in 1949

"We are working on that now, more information will soon come," says the State Secretary in the Ministry of Defense to the Barents Observer.

Norway’s self-imposed security and defense restrictions in Finnmark region have a historical precedent: Not to provoke a Moscow that has its main naval nuclear assets based along the coast of the neighbouring Kola Peninsula. These restrictions, however, are hot potatoes of the day in Norwegian security debate. “All of Norway must be defended, and then all of Norway must be open to training,” says Magnus Mæland, Mayor of Sør-Varanger, the municipality bordering Russia to the east. Mæland adds: “The self-imposed restrictions are pointless and meaningless when our NATO ally Finland trains close to the border. I expect the restrictions to be gradually lifted.” On May 8, the Mayor and the Defense Ministry’s State Secretary jointly marked 80 years of peace and freedom outside Kirkenes in the country’s northeast corner by laying wreath at a local second world war monument.

Although Kirkenes was liberated by the Red Army on October 25, 1944, it was first on May 8, 1945 that all of Norway was a free nation, after five years under Nazi-German occupation. Arguing for lifting some of the self-imposed military restrictions, State Secretary Marthe Gerhardsen underlines the importance. “We are in another security policy situation. It makes sense to look at it again and that is the work we are doing.” The restrictions limit allied forces to train army soldiers on the ground east of Porsanger in Finnmark, as well as banning NATO surveillance aircraft flying east of about the 27° longitude. The latter restriction, however, has step-by-step been pushed east in regards to allowing British and US surveillance aircraft on missions to the Barents Sea after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Marte Gerhardsen does not want to elaborate on details in the current work on lifting some of the restrictions. “We are working in close dialogue with our new allies [Finland and Sweden], especially when it comes to training and exercising. It is good for Norway and it is good for NATO that they now are in the alliance,” she says. A paradox for Norway, critics says about the restrictions, is that Finland today allows NATO forces to exercise much closer to the Russian border than Norway, like at the Rovajärvi training ground in Lapland. Also, the Border Guard base in Ivalo is designated as one of five locations in northern Finland where U.S.

troops can be based. Marte Gerhardsen admits that Finland joining NATO without any self-imposed restrictions on allied exercises near the border with Russia challenges the Norwegian thinking. “These are new challenges we got as a result of Finland and Sweden have become members of NATO: We have to work differently than before.” It was Marte Gerhardsen’s grandfather, Einar Gerhardsen, who introduced the self-imposed restrictions back in 1949. As Prime Minister, Einar Gerhardsen, had to balance small-state Norway’s relations with the superpower Soviet Union on one side with Oslo’s decision to become a founding member of NATO. The aim was to reassure Moscow of Norway’s non-aggressive intensions.

Additional to refusing other NATO members to train soldiers in the proximity to the border with the USSR, it was also put a ban on nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil in peace-time as well as banning American bases in the country. The self-imposed restrictions were announced on February 1, 1949, while Norway signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4 the same year. Marte Gerhardsen’s announcement that work now is under way on lifting some of the self-imposed restrictions is a big change in Norway’s security landscape. Last January, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said on question from the Barents Observer “we have no plans to change the pattern that is recognizable to Norway.” Støre categorically made clear that long-term perspective and predictability is “a very important resource for a country like Norway with our geography.” Meanwhile, both high-ranking military officials and researchers have called for scrapping limitations on exercises near Russia’s border in the north. As Europe and Russia on May 8 and 9 celebrates the end of second world war, Moscow’s narrative is cynically exploiting WWII to justify the criminal invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of the May 9 military parade on the Red Square, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov writes in an article published by the Security Council that the fight against neo-Nazism in Ukraine is comparable to the fight against Nazism during second world war. “Russian soldiers and officers are defending what their grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought for. The victory of the Russian people and their armed forces in the fight against neo-Nazism will go down in the history of the country as equal to the feat of the Soviet people and the army during the Great Patriotic War,” Belousov wrote. In Oslo, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre on May 8 presented Norway’s first national security strategy where he warns against the most serious security situation the country has faced since the second world war. “The world has become more dangerous and more unpredictable.

A broad, overarching national security strategy is needed to respond to this situation. We must pull together to do what it takes to keep Norway secure and safe,” Støre said. Although the strategy says nothing about lifting self-imposed military restrictions, the message is clear: “The new strategy provides a basis for the political decisions Norway will have to take and the priorities to be set in the time ahead,” the White Paper from the Government reads. The Government has previously presented the white paper on total preparedness and the Long-term Defence Plan. Up north, Kirkenes Mayor Magnus Mæland is happy about one very loud change in Norway’s military presence in recent months, the new F-35 fighter jets have at least four times since new year been on missions in the skies above the border town close to Russia.

“I think it is good that the F-35s are flying in our area,” Mæland says to the Barents Observer.